Published - 27th October 2025
Far from being a vanity exercise, industry award schemes can bring a host of benefits to your business which can be felt long after the ceremony ends. Our Senior PR Account Manager Liz Slack takes a look at some of the key benefits of including relevant industry awards as part of your overall marketing strategy.
We’d always recommend taking a strategic approach to awards. Make sure the award schemes and categories you chose to enter align with your company goals. If you want to attract and retain top talent than a business award highlighting the initiatives you’ve put in place to support employees would be way to make you stand out. If you want to position your company as innovator or shine a light on your customer service, product range or technical expertise – there’s an award scheme for that .
Contrary to popular belief, the value of entering an award scheme isn’t all about being crowned the ultimate winner. Being commended by judges as a finalist, regardless of whether you win, adds credibility to your reputation, showcases your work and highlights your business as being among the best of the best. As such it is a great way to benchmark and differentiate yourself from your competitors as well as making your company more visible to your customers and within your specific market.
And of course, if you are successfully shortlisted or win an award, that offers you a great hook to talk about your award-winning products and services as part of your PR and marketing strategy. Most award schemes provide marketing assets for nominated companies so take full advantage of any opportunity, whether that’s via an advert or company profile on the organiser’s website or printed material, or e-marketing packages. Make the most of it by adding the award logo to your website, email footers and social media channels and don’t forget a news story for your website and targeted media. A nomination is a seal of approval from a third party so it’s worth shouting about.
Many award schemes also offer fantastic networking opportunities, giving you an invaluable opportunity to get in front of the people you want to do business with. You just never know who will be reading your entry as the judges may be peers, competitors, suppliers or clients.
As well as the award ceremony, many schemes are now also organising dedicated networking events bringing together all the shortlisted companies and sponsors in one place in advance of the final which can open the door to exciting new opportunities.
As well as putting your company in the spotlight to the external world, awards can help to attract and retain staff by showcasing the pride and care you take in your work. It’s a great way to boost morale and motivate employees, working for a company that cares about what it does and strives to be the best. If you are an award-winning company, make sure everyone knows by updating your website and social media channels as well as communicating the news via internal newsletters or intranets.
Putting you on a more visible stage and demonstrating clearly where your strengths lie can also help when it comes to sourcing future investment in the business by offering credible third party recognition. This is particularly true of larger, nationally recognised award schemes such as the King’s Award for Enterprise but regional business awards can also be extremely effective in raising your profile in your local area.
The process of compiling an award entry can also help show where any gaps might be to help you reach your next steps or goals as a company – reviewing your current performance against what the judges are looking for. Be sure to take advantage of any constructive feedback from the judges.
Writing and submitting compelling award entries can seem daunting but our copywriting team is well versed in distilling all the great things you’re doing into a powerful narrative.
We understand how to present your entry to meet the judging criteria and with a keen eye for detail, you can trust us to represent your company accurately. We can also manage the process from start to finish, assisting with the submission process, any supporting assets such as posters or videos that may be required and also help preparing for any interviews that may form part of the judging process.
We also offer a different perspective and can review what you’d like to put forward objectively to assess whether the category and award is the right fit for you and what you’d like to achieve.
There’s much to gain and absolutely nothing to lose with industry awards.
Even if you feel like you don’t have time to devote to an award entry or you’re not sure if it’s worth the investment – talk to us and see how beneficial it can be to add awards into your company’s marketing mix.
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